PILDAT Executive Director, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, met for over an hour with the four-membered UNDP-IPU mission at Lahore at the invitation of the Senate Secretariat of Pakistan.

The mission is visiting Pakistan in connection with providing technical assistance in the following areas;

i. Institutional reforms aimed at streamlining the organizational structure of the Parliament; ii. The Committee system with a view to streamlining it and ensuring better Parliamentary scrutiny of legislation and oversight; iii. Legislative drafting; iv. Parliamentary services with special attention being paid to needs in the field of Library, Research, Documentation and modern information technology; v. Human resources and the needs for streamlining personnel administration to enable it to provide more efficient back-stopping to Members; vi. Capacity building measures for women Parliamentarians and strengthening Parliament's ability to address gender issues; vii. Relations with members constituents, with the media, civil society organization to ensure that parliamentary processes are adequately informed by inputs from these sectors of society.

The mission included: Mr. Sanaka Samarsinha, Advisor to the Bureau for Development Policy, UNDP, based in Bankok, Thailand; Mr. Michael Davies, Consultant, Former Secretary General, House of Lords, UK; Mr. Nihal Seneviratne, Consultant, Retired Secretary General, Sri Lankan Parliament; and Ms. Margereta Brundin, Consultant, Research & Library Department of Swedish Parliament.

Mr. Mehboob apprised the members of the work so far done in Pakistan regarding Legislative Development and answered their questions. The members showed keen interest in the work done by PILDAT and commended the organization for its initiatives.

Mr. Chungong, Office in Charge of the Programme for the Study and Promotion of Representative Institutions, was not present at the meeting. PILDAT Executive Director, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, later met Mr. Chungong at Islamabad on October 29, 2003.